Once I tossed the crutches aside I started house hunting. They say things happen for a reason and this may be why I broke my hip. After my second trip to the hospital and I was finally back home. I ended up meeting my neighbor Cindy who her and her husband Dale flip houses here in Kzoo. I ended up meeting her because she heard about my accident and wondered if there was anything she could do to help (she's a nurse) she ended up helping me with my blood thinner shots the first couple times and we got to talking. I found out that they have done pretty well flipping houses here in town and that was always something I thought about doing, but because of the housing market didn't think it was possible and never acted on it. I figured if they can do it so can I, it's a new year and it's time to work towards my ultimate goal instead of talking about it… and then the search began. I got pre-approved for another house, got a realtor to work with and started searching. There was a house that caught my eye; small, vinyl siding, someone had already started working on it, quiet street, the houses on the street all looked nice and it was listed for $24,900.00. I talked with my buddy Marc from college to see if this is something he would be interested in going in on. Marc's pretty handy himself and I knew we would be a good team. Marc met me out at the house; we walked through it, took notes and met back up a couple days later. I created a budget, ran some numbers and we both agreed that we could make some money on this house and give a family a nice home at a reasonable price. Then the good news… Tuesday morning I woke up, checked my e-mail to find that this house had been dropped $5000.00 to $19,900.00, I thought wow that's 20%. I called Marc with the good news and set a time to meet later that evening. Then called the realtor and said we were interested. Tuesday evening we put in our offer. Friday (today) I finally heard from the realtor, they had accepted our offer, but I'm still a little skeptical of this… they did not give us anything in writing yet. They wanted us to have our home inspection first which will be sometime next week / weekend. I'm still a little skeptical but he reassured me it was ours.What made this house a good deal??? It's sat on a quiet street, the other houses on the street were all in good shape, the asking price was less than the taxable value of $30,000 (usually the taxable value is half of what the house is worth, so it's kind of like getting a $60,000 house for $19,900), a house 3 doors down was selling for $76,000, I created a very detailed spreadsheet that went over the budget and the numbers worked out. We still have the home inspection, but Marc and I are geeked about the new project. It will be great to have a partner on this project to have a second set of hands, bounce ideas off each other, keep each other motivated if one gets burned out, split the cost financially, and just someone to work with.
This evening after work I stopped by the house and took a couple pictures of the exterior. Now I know it's no Taj Mahal and it never will be, but were confident we can make it a nice home for a family, help improve the neighborhood and make some money.
